Press the Alt button on the keyboard, grab a bit of the Healing Tool.
Click. Grab again. Click, click. Dust spots gone.
Photography in the 21st Century.
The irony isn't lost on me, this analog/digital process of mine these days. I go out into the desert, with my 50-year-old Kodak Brownie Starflash, with its plastic lens, its two aperture settings and its one shutter speed, and take diptychs, triptychs and fourpieces. I have Photographic Works, a lab here in Tucson, process the negs. (It's cheaper for them to do it, then for me to go into the darkroom, and they can push the film as much I want). I cut the negs and have P.W. make a 8 1/2 x 11 proof sheet. Lately, I've been going into the Toole Shed Darkroom and printing the diptychs on 8 x 10 Ilford Black and White RC paper. (Steve at PW still does the triptychs and fourpieces, for my enlarger can't handle a neg that large. And Steve has printed diptychs too in the past. I'm a good printer but Steve is very good as well. But if I have to burn in some sky, it's better for me to do it. Also, on rare occasions, I've had a friend scan the negs on his high dollar Nikon negative scanner and I take that file to my Photoshop).
Just last weekend I was in the darkroom and it was a joy to just print up the 8 x 10s and only have to worry about borders, contrast, and a bit of burning and dodging. In the past when I've printed images on 11 x 14 paper and larger, I work my ass off to have no dust at all on the negative so I don't have to spot the prints later. They just come out good to go, but it's a very long process, hours and hours. Plus with the larger handprints, there is a ton of burning and dodging. Average, about 2 hours a print. But last Saturday, I was in and out of the darkroom in 3 hours with 2 completed images, photos drying on the screens, chemicals and trays all cleaned up and not so tired that I couldn't go out that night.
After the 8 x 10s are dry, I take them home and scan them, using my Epson scanner at 300 or 400 dpi, and size them for how big I'm going to print them later. Maybe 13"' x 19", maybe much larger as in the case with "The Three Surrender Trees" which is a 30" x 45" print. "The Council Rocks" are about 13" x 19". Shouldn't take too many days to clean it up. That's right I said 'days'. Now I'm at the point of using the healing tool, setting it at 10 pixels in diameter, going into the image at 300%, and cleaning up one piece of dust at a time. Now I can hear the graphic designers out there screaming, that that isn't really necessary to be this fastidious, that I only need to clone or heal the big stuff. Well, you're probably right, but on numerous occasions, I've had this particular unpleasant experience at a art gallery. I stand at a distance looking at a beautiful photographic image. It draws me in. Then I walk up close, take off my glasses and look at the image's fine details. I wish I had a nickel for every time I've closely examined a print and seen a bit of dust from a negative that hasn't been spotted on a photographic print, or if not that, I've seen a number of dusty pixels on a digitally produced print, in which the photographer just got lazy or simply didn't care. When I step back and look at the image again, it isn't as striking as it was before for I knew about the dust. I can't see the dust but I know it's there. But if that image was clean and tight, it would increases its visual power to me. Even great photographers I know get sloppy and I'm disappointed. Call me compulsive- obsessive. Hell, I know I am. But I know when an image is spot on, its energy goes to another level. And this holds true with the painterly photographer too. The strokes of bleach are greatly considered. The stains from the chemicals are thought through. I believe that people expect artists to see things that most can't see. They also expect use to technically do things they can not do.
So here I am with the Healing Tool from my Photoshop 7, sitting in my apartment, cleaning up dust, one speck at a time. Sometimes music is playing in the background, right now it's Thom Brennan's ambient masterpiece "Mist". Other times it's just Bad TV.
I once had an art teacher who said you have to love the process of making art, all of it, even the boring stuff. I agree, but some parts I enjoy better than other. This is one of the parts I enjoy less.
But then I do look at the image on my flat IMAC screen and I'm quietly moved, enjoying seeing a section of the photograph blown up to 300%. A clump of grass, becomes just a series of straight lines. A portion of a boulder becomes an abstract study in light and dark contrasts. And as the hours go by, with me click off rows after rows of cleanup, I do get excited when I'm over 2/3's done for I can see the end in sight. But right now, I'm about a 1/3 done. A long way to go.
I click on the Apple button and the Plus button and the image become normal size on the screen. I can see the whole diptych now. In the right portion of the image, I look and wonder. Were those the Council Rocks? I was a little confused that day out in the Dragoons.
Sweet Jesus, I've never been so happy to engage the 4-wheel-drive in all my life. That dirt road out of Tombstone is one of the worst washboard roads I've ever been on. Huge standing waves of dirt and rock, and trying to drive on the shoulder, like I do up on the Navajo Rez, just doesn't work here. There is no shoulder, no ditch. Just one long carpet of washboard from edge to edge, but now after ten miles of teeth rattling, I've turned onto a smooth gently rolling Jeep trail that leads deep into the Western side of the Dragoons.
Never been on this side of the Dragoons before, I think to myself, but I've felt pulled to it lately after I started researching Cochise and his Chokonen band of Chiricahua Apaches. On the outside of the Dragoons, on the eastern slope, is Cochise's Stronghold, a place I've been to a number of times over the years, but this Jeep trail on the western slope is brand new to me and that's saying something, given all the dirt roads in Southern Arizona I've driven on, over the past 20 years. My U.S. Forest Service map of the area lays draped over a pillow that is in the passenger's seat of my Pathfinder, a pillow that muffles the rattle in my right door and also serves as a place to rest my head when I take catnaps on long trips. No sleeping today.
I stop the truck after about a half mile, grab the map and study it. I look in the rear view mirror. No one there. No more in front. I take a little time. On the map there seems to be a place called White House Ruins. Does look far. And near that to the south, are something called Council Rocks. I wonder what those are? I wonder if any thing significant happened here, back in the day? Feels like something happened here. Just a feeling.
I toss the map back over onto the pillow and put the truck in gear. Well, let's go see what we shall see. But I don't have all day unfortunately. John and Beth are having their 20th Wedding Anniversary party back in Tucson and I said I'd come. And Annie will be there too. It'll be good to see her. Maybe. I guess. Shit if I know.
A couple of weeks later, I discovered that a lot did happen over on this side of the mountain, but I didn't know it at the time. Just that feeling. But in 1872, peace was finally negotiated with Cochise near Council Rocks and a few years early, further up in the Western Stronghold area, it is said that it was there that Tom Jeffords first meet Cochise.
A little about Tom Jeffords, the man who will forever be known as Cochise's best White friend. Born in 1832, Thomas J. Jeffords was a tall, thin man with red hair and a long beard. In the 1850's he was sailor on the Great Lakes. He helped lay road in Kansas and Colorado after his stint on the boat, and he prospected in New Mexico before the Civil War. In the Civil War he was a scout for the Union General E .R. S. Canby, in the area of New Mexico and Arizona. After the Civil War, things get a little foggy to say the least. It is known that he either started or managed a mail run, that went between Santa Fe and Tucson. He probably meet the Chihennes clan of the Apaches in New Mexico before he meet Cochise and his Arizonan Chokenen band. My guess is, it was through his knowing the Chihennes that he learned to speak Apache. After not too long, he quit the mail business and went back to prospecting and trading and finally ended up in the Canada Alamosa area of New Mexico in 1869. Most evidences points that he met Cochise in Canada Alamosa when Cochise briefly came to the area to talk a little peace. The peace failed, mostly because the U.S. Army and the Government wanted him to move to New Mexico and Cochise want to stay in his beloved Chirichaua Mountains and the Dragoons. Anyway, the facts point toward Jeffords meeting Cochise there, but there are two stories that strong contradict that notion and one of those I like to think is closer to the truth.
The first story is from Jeffords' account told to Robert Forbes in 1913 when Jeffords was his eighties, a story that was told again in the movie "Broken Arrow" and in the book "Blood Brother" by Elliott Arnold. Basically what Jeffords said was that in the early 1860's, when according to him, he was running the mail through Cochise's land, he was tired of getting his couriers killed. Seems most never made it to Tucson from parts East, with perhaps as many as 20 of Jeffords' employees being killed running the mail on horseback, along the old Butterfield Stage road. Tom said that he took a big risk and rode alone into Cochise's camp in the Western Stronghold area of the Dragoons. He had arms but did not show them. He just walked right up to Cochise's wickiup and introduced himself. Cochise was so impressed with Jeffords' bravery and lack of fear that he spared his life and through some discussions, Cochise agreed to let Jefford's mail pass through his land unhindered.
A few problems with this story. First, only Jeffords tells this story this way. No Apaches, no troops, nobody ever heard of this story. Secondly, Apache raids on the mail continued until the eventual peace with Cochise in 1872, and third, Jeffords probably wasn't carrying the mail at that time. Many said that after the Civil War, Jeffords was mostly prospecting and a number of sources say that Jeffords met Cochise while prospecting in the mountains of Southeastern Arizona.
The account that I think is probably closer to the truth is the story told by Mrs. Eve Ball, the oral historian of the Apache Tribe. Tom Jeffords didn't go find Cochise. Cochise ran across Jeffords while he was prospecting and due to Jefford's fearlessness, he didn't kill him. Judging from what is often written about Jeffords, he was a straight shooter, didn't bullshit anyone, told the truth no matter what others thought, but also kept his mouth shut instead of lying when he wanted to withhold the truth. He also fluently spoke the Apache language. That, I believe, is incredibly significant, that he could talk directly to the Apaches and to Cochise in particular. Also, as I mentioned in another story, Apaches as a culture prized candor and truthfulness as very high virtues and also believe in just being quiet rather than telling a bold faced lie (the exception to the rule being lying to your enemies in order to get him off guard so you can kill him).
I picture Tom and Cochise's meeting, something like this. Remember though, I'm just making this shit up.
Tom is digging a hole, looking for gold or silver or copper, maybe in the Dragoons, maybe in the Chiricahuas. I'm guessing the Dragoons. He hears a horse whinny, then another. Then through the trees, he sees five to ten Apaches on horseback, slowing riding toward him. He probably think he's screwed but you never know. He speaks first:
Jeffords: (in Apache) "Hello, how are you doing?"
Cochise: (flanked by a number of his warriors, his horse stops. He's surprised a white man speaks his language. His warriors rest their rifles on their laps. They look intently at Jefford. Cochise speaks and only him) "I'm good. How are you?
Jeffords: "I'm good too, Thanks you."
Cochise: "My name is Cochise"
Jeffords: "Mine is Tom Jeffords"
Cochise: "So you speak my language?"
Jeffords: "Enough to get by."
Cochise: "You know this is my land, don't you?"
Jeffords: "I sure do"
Cochise: "What are you doing?"
Jeffords: "Looking for gold, but not having any luck. Just digging a hole mostly."
Cochise (smiles) : "You also know that I've killed a lot of white men."
Jeffords: "Yep, I know that too. Seen your handiwork quite a bit."
Cochise: "Do you think I'm wrong to kill the white man, to kill the Mexicans?"
Jeffords: "I'd rather you not kill this white man." (He points to himself.)
Cochise: "You don't seem that frightened."
Jeffords: "Oh, I'm scared but frankly, you'll either kill me or you won't and there ain't a goddamn thing I can do to stop you. But, Cochise, I'd prefer that you let me live"
Cochise: (laughing) "Are you always this blunt?"
Jeffords: (shrugs) "Pretty much, at least that what my friends say."
Cochise: (smiling) "I like you. I don't think I'll kill you today. Would you like to come to my camp and have some dinner with me and the wives tonight?"
Jeffords: "Thought you'd never ask."
(Both of them laugh, even the young Apache braves chuckle a bit.)
I bet you this is closer to the truth, but hell if I or anyone know. I don't blame Jeffords for sweetening the story when he was an old man. I'll probably be telling people if I make it to my 80's, that those flame spiral photographs I made in my 40's were actually not created by my using a Zippo lighter but rather were the visual records of ghosts I saw in the desert moonlight. But one thing is certain. However they met, Cochise and Jeffords became fast friends. They trusted each other, cared about each other, and neither ever betrayed the other.
This is interesting land. The huge rocks of the Dragoons seemed to have just tumbled down from heaven, coming to rest of an almost flat plain of grass and Mesquite. No foothills to speak of at all, in this part of the mountains. A little rising and falling through the shallow arroyos, but the driving is mostly easy and smooth. Campers are here and there, hidden in the trees, but not many. Maybe three bunches in the hour I've been on this road. I've past camper number three and just ahead I see a majestic cluster of boulders, rising to at least a thousand feet or more. Even from this distance of a mile, I can see how I might be able to bushwhack, if not to the top, damn close to it. I drive a bit faster now, and with minutes, I've crossed that mile. I take a right on a side road and quickly find a place to park the truck. As I get out, I notice that I'm parked on a flat red ant hill. I pull the Pathfinder up a few feet. Red ants can be bad.
I gaze up at the rocks. I wonder if this is Council Rocks? Is the White House Ruins nearby? I suddenly don't care. I'm here. Those boulders are there. I want to get up as high as I can go on them. I stow my Brownie in my water pack, shoulder them and head for the base of those rocks.
By 1872, Cochise was ready to stop fighting the Americans. Many of his warriors were dead. His people were tired and hungry. So was he.
But like a greek tragedy, two U.S. Generals of greatly opposing ideas on how to solve the Indian Problem jockeyed for power. First there was General George Crook, a man who had been fighting the Apaches all across Southern Arizona for the last year. He was not for the placement of Indians on reservation. He wanted to defeat them, kill them, and kill them some more. But then another General arrived in 1872 and he outranked Crook.
O.O. Howard was a deeply Christian man who lost an arm in the Civil War. Howard saw the Indians as people, not vermin to be exterminated and he had a mandate from Washington to do anything he could, to bring peace and lead the Apaches onto a reservation.
General Howard arrived in New Mexico and soon found out that a man, a white man, was a friend of Cochise's. He summoned Tom Jeffords to his camp and employed him to find Cochise and invite him to come to Howard's camp and talk peace. Jeffords was straightforward and direct with Howard, telling him that Cochise will never come to Howard, but that he would be happy to take Howard to see Cochise. Jeffords also said that he must not come with forces, to come unarmed. Howard agreed and in the coming days before their journey to find Cochise, was so taken by Tom Jeffords, that he appointed him to be the agent of the 'Cochise Reservation', if and when it was formed. Within a few days, Howard, Jeffords and three other men began their trek to find Cochise.
With the help of some Apaches along the way and a bit of luck, The Howard-Jeffords party found Cochise in the Western Stronghold of the Dragoons. Accompanying the party were two of Cochise's relatives, Ponce and Chie. Ponce and Chie burned smoke signals the day before their arrival at Cochise's camp to say who they were and why they were coming. Cochise's scouts had been seen the progress of this group for days, but the knowledge of the presence of his relatives really helped the cause. Jeffords' being there as well gave Howard extra clout with Cochise.
Jeffords, Howard, Ponce, Chie and the others camped that night, and the next day, Cochise came to see them. Cochise immediately hugged Jeffords and Jeffords then introduced Howard to him.
"This is the man," Jeffords said to Howard.
"Buenos dios, Senor," Cochise said, shaking Howard's hand.
Cochise then pulled his friend Jeffords aside.
"Do you think the General and his men will be honest and do as they say they will do?" asked Cochise.
"Well, I don't know," said Jeffords, "I think they will, but I will see that they don't promise too much."
After briefly talking with Ponce and Chie, Cochise went to Howard and asked why he was here.
"I have come from Washington to meet your people and make peace, and will stay as long as necessary," said Howard.
Cochise then said, "Nobody wants peace more than I do. I have done no mischief since I came from Canada Alamosa, but I am poor, my horses are poor, and I have but few. I might have got more by raiding the Tucson road but I did not do it."
Howard then proposed his idea of a reservation at Canada Alamosa in New Mexico. "I'll go, but I am sure it would break my band," said Cochise, knowing his people would not go. Then it is said, to everyone surprise, Cochise said, "Why not give me Apache Pass? Give me that and I will protect all the roads. I will see that nobody's property is taken by Indians. But I need to talk this over with my captains, and most of them are out making a living." (By the way, 'making a living' was Cochise way of saying they were out raiding cattle and live stock, probably in Mexico.)
Howard agreed to wait until Cochise had talked with his leadership. Cochise however asked that Howard go to Fort Bowie and tell them that a truce was in place and not fight with his captains. Howard first wanted to send Lt. Sladen but Cochise insisted that Howard go, so that night with the help of Chie, Howard made his way to Fort Bowie. Howard later talked about the tough crossing of the Dragoons, how he tore his coat to shreds in the dark. Howard got to Fort Bowie the next morning, delivered the message of truce, and left the fort around 2 p.m. to make his way back to the Dragoons. The next day, Howard arrived after having traveled 80 miles in just a few days.
Then came the long wait until all of Cochise's captains came to the Western Stronghold. Lt. Sladen is our best witness of that week in Cochise's camp. Sadly, little was known by whites of how the Apaches lived until the peace parley. Not even a accurate description of Cochise post-Civil War, was available until the Sladen accounts of this meeting. Many thought Cochise was old and beat down when in reality, he was still strong, relatively young and the best groomed of all, white and indian alike.
During that week, Sladen witnessed Cochise getting drunk and having a fight with one of his wives, and saw Jeffords stepping in to calm down this domestic dispute. Another time Sladen heard Cochise singing and praying over the wounded body of one of his warriors. Sladen had medical training and Howard offered Salden services to Cochise. Cochise thanked them but refused. He told Sladen that the warrior was very ill, and if he died, and his people knew that Sladen had worked on him, they might think that Sladen had given him bad medicine, hastening his death, and then they would want to kill Sladen. Sladen agreed with Cochise and didn't treat the warrior.
One by one, the Apache captains arrived through that week, twelve all total, with two others absent who they were off raiding (i.e. 'making a living') in Sonora, Mexico. The following day, The captains and Cochise held council to decide if they want peace. General Howard want to sit in, but Jeffords dissuaded him from this, saying that they would know soon enough by the sounds come from the council camp. Sure enough, soon Cochise returned to where Jeffords and Howard were camped and stated that they were ready to decide on the specific terms of peace.
The terms were simple. Even though Howard initially wished for Cochise and his people to go to New Mexico, he acquested and agreed to Cochise's terms that the reservation be on land that was beloved by Cochise, namely the Chiricahuas Mountains, the Dragoons, and most of Southeastern Arizona, down to the border with Mexico. The U.S Government also agreed to provide the provisions of food and clothing. Cochise agree to protect the roads and to keep them safely open to travel. And finally, Tom Jeffords would be the Apaches' Indian agent of the reservation, representing their needs to the U.S. Army and Government. I believe with out Jeffords' willingness to perform this role, the peace would have never gotten off the ground.
During this negotiation with Jeffords and Howard, Cochise is quoted as saying that "Hereafter, the White man and the Indian are to drink from the same water, eat of the same bread, and be at peace."
A couple of days later, everyone went home, except for Cochise who was already home. There were concerns if the peace would last, especially among the officers who had now come to the Council from Fort Bowie. The fort would now be in the center of the reservation. But the biggest concern was Mexico to the south. The Apaches would likely raid across the border, taken stock and cattle however they wished. Cochise himself said that "the Mexicans are on one side of this matter and the Americans on another...I made peace with the Americans, but the Mexicans did not come to ask peace from me."
But that matter would come home to roust later. This peace with the Apaches was extremely significant and Cochise and his people would stay at peace with the Americans for the remainder of his life. Cochise never again fought with the U.S. Army nor did he himself raid again in Mexico (even though a number of his people did). General Crook was furious when he hear the conditions of the treaty, but he had very little power to change anything. And as the peace continued to hold, Howard began to get support from not only the newspapers but from the ranchers and miners of Southern Arizona.
Peace had finally come, negotiated by an old trio of men: A one armed Christian General, a straight shooting honest ex-prospector, and a tall fastidiously dressed Apache Indian Chief.
The hike up here wasn't all that difficult but there was a moment or two of some semi-serious bouldering. At one point, I had to force myself to move my legs as I spidered up a steep crevasse between two large granite boulders. I could feel myself freezing up with fear. I literally had to say softly out loud 'Move, Stu'. I moved. I'm OK.
I'm guessing I'm about 800 feet or so above the flat valley floor below. Off a ways, I can see Chesapeake, my truck, parked in a turnaround. Further west is the gently rising silhouette of the Whetstone range, and to the southwest, the large blue mass of the Huachuca Mountains.
I'm standing in a cradle of space create by these numerous large granite boulders. There is a sheltering feeling to this place. The granite hasn't be worn by cattle hoofs or hiking boot soles. It's still rough like 5 grade sandpaper. A middle aged Juniper tree struggles for purchase in a crack in on of the boulder, its width wider than its height, knarled by the westerly winds. There is no soil to speak of. Only fine granite dust and pebbles, but life does find a way.
To the east stands a large rock tower, another 800 feet higher than where I sit. That peak was my initial goal. I can picture the route up to the top, up that crevasse, hop that gap between boulders, spider up that side, but I decide not to attempt it. Over the years, I've learned that I sometimes prefer to stop just before a summit, when I'm on the mountain top, I can't see the mountain top for I'm standing on it, but if I stop just a ways before, I see the summit and feel the summit too. Plus right now, this shelter of stones, these rock hands holding me, feels very healing and healing is really what I need right now, more that a summit pitch.
I take out the Brownie and squeeze off a couple of diptychs of that three foot Juniper tree. I also have my Pentax with the 28 mm lenses with me and I take some shots of the tree as well with it. I look around for some other images but feel a little lost in the moment and decide to put down the cameras. I grab the CamelBak instead and drink deep and hard from its blue tubing. God, that's good. I look up at the high granite pillar and think 'I'm good just here.' I drink more, swirling the water around in my mouth before swallowing. It tastes so good.
I begin to wander around my large stone cradle, a few feet there, just to some other rocks, then over to a large ocotillo with its spokes pointing skyward. I walk more lightly than I usually do. I'm so aware of how virgin this landscape is, how perhaps a hiker or two over the years has come up here, but it isn't really that dramatic to most folk, to draw them up to these rocks. I wouldn't be surprised if the last person up here wasn't Apache.
My little wanderings in this space take me to a granite rock that'ss shaped like those stone megaliths that are found dispersed throughout the British Isles. Pointed at the top, widening toward the base, not some a standing stone, but a stone left after all around it has eroded away. And I see a shot. Ocotillos, near to the left of the faux megalith. To the stone's right, a group of even more dramatic granite slabs and boulders, far to the north, my guess at least three miles away. Now those stones would attract the occasional white weekend warrior looking to bag a few boulders for his ego. Apache raiders and sentries from a century ago would want to sit atop them as well. I compose the image, with near me, to the left and far away, to the right. I pop a couple exposures. Then a couple more. I put the Brownie back in its little pack and grab the Pentax. I take some shots but I can tell it just ain't the same as the Brownie diptychs. Too much of an actual record of the standing stone, the boulders in the distance, the ocotillo. I'm looking to create a bit more of a dreamy image, not an actual representation of reality. The Brownie is great for that. I sure hope these images turn out. I really want to write about this place as much as anything, but I won't write if the images suck. So don't suck, images, OK?
I stare again at those dramatic northern boulders. Feels like something happened here a long time ago. I know that Cochise lived on the other side of these mountains, but I wonder if anything happened here. I wonder.
After a few more minutes, I pack up my gear and plan my descent. I'll got a different route down than up. I gaze down and kinda sorta see a way to get down. Slowly, sometimes in reverse spider form, I make my way down. Takes no time really. Before too long, I'm out of the boulders and back walking on a narrow trail that leads through the tall grass.
Well, not entirely, out of the boulders. To the South, I see a small group of a half dozen twenty foot high granite rocks, clustered together as if they are trying to stay warm, and I flashback to Bear Butte, South Dakota. 23 years ago. One of those fast visual memories with few words but with huge amounts of feeling and power.
Crazy Horse. The Council Rocks there. These rocks here remind me of those there. I walk toward this cluster of stones, feeling pulled to them.
Tom, John and I had driven up to Chicago to be part of Bo's wedding to Cathy. She seemed really nice, not like some of the other women Bo had dated in the past. We were hopeful for them. (Bo and Cathy are still married and their twin boys will be attending the University of South Carolina in the fall.). Tom and John got back to North Carolina some other way than with me, for I was taking my second ever road trip out west. My first trip in 1977 was more struggle than fun. I hitchhiked from North Carolina to visit friends of friends in Austin, Texas, and then couldn't get pickup up leaving Austin and had to take a bus to Colorado. Then when I got to Alamosa, Colorado, I stayed in a empty college dorm room and since I was hitchhiking, I didn't bring along any dope to smoke and had to bum pot off my friends in Alamosa. The ride back to North Carolina with Ray was fun, drinking Long Star and Coors, and the couple hikes to the Great Sand Dunes nearby was fabulous, but I was utterly exhausted when I returned to North Carolina, wondering if it had been worth time and money.
But this trip is different, at least I hoped it would be. I was with close friends up til Chicago and being with Bo and Cathy was a great beginning. I had plenty of Marijuana with me, and a shitload of Acid as well. I had saved up a little money by living at home with my folks while I waited tables at a Marriott in Raleigh. And I was driving a 1966 Chevy II that I inherited from my deceased grandmother, Mama Lillie. I was filled with false hope of perhaps getting back together with Lisa in San Francisco (It didn't happen. I called her out of the blue, from my friend Eric's apartment near Golden Gate Park, where I was staying. We had coffee. She was freaked out that I was in town. And she had a boyfriend). Also, in the back of my mind, way in the back, I was considering moving to a new city out west. I told my friends at the time that it was like the Talking Heads song. 'Looking for a city to live in'. I even had all of my personal possessions in a car carrier on the roof of the Chevy, just in case. (Not much really, some sculptures from art school, a couple of 8 mm experimental films, records, books, clothes) Honestly, looking back, I was just wanting to get away from myself and my own nagging self-hatred at the time. As the old saying goes, "Wherever you go, there you are." In 1982, I was hoping more for "Wherever I go, I'm not there." Hard to pull off. The Acid and the dope helped though. At least for a while.
I was a few days out of Chicago. I dropped Acid prior to enter Badlands National Park. I remember exiting Interstate 80 east of the Badlands and driving on a two lane farm road for a few miles. I pulled onto the shoulder of this rural road, got out of the Chevy and watch for about an hour, the wind blowing across the top of these huge fields of wheat that surrounded me. Grey rain clouds raced overhead. Some rain, then it would stop, then more, then stop, but always the wind in the wheat. 'So these are the amber waves of grain we sing about,' I thought at the time. Over the years, I've wondered if I shouldn't go back to the wheat fields of South Dakota in the summertime, to see if they are as pretty as I remember. I was dropping a small bucket load of Acid during that trip.
That night I collapse in a fleabag motel in Wall, South Dakota. The next morning, I arose early, paid the bill, got a cup of coffee, loaded a bowl, and got back on I-80 West. My goal for the day was to make it to Mount Rushmore, timing the LSD I would soon drop, so I would peak right when I saw the four presidential faces. (I did just that, later in the day. I mostly remember an old man saying out loud to his middle aged daughter "I finally made it." The Presidents were nice too.)
The morning light was amazing that day. I had never seen light like this back in North Carolina. Too much humidity I guess. (I almost take it for granted now living so long in Tucson, this dramatic morning and evening light.) Each blade of grass seemed alive, shining with its early morning dew. Could be the pot. Could be the residual of yesterday's LSD. Could be the grass itself. Years later, I'm guessing all three.
I had been driving a little more than an hour when off to the right I notice a dome shape mountain to the north, rising alone out of the grassy plains. I'm guessing I saw a sign. I really don't remember, but I did exit the Interstate and drove toward this mountain. I know it wasn't in my plans to stop. Mt. Rushmore was on my mind that morning.
I soon discovered I was entering Bear Butte State Park. Through my open driver's side window, I saw a small hear of Buffalo eating grass near the roadside. Buffalo! I stopped at the first large sign I found and read about this place.
I learned that Bear Butte is sacred ground to many Native tribes, primarily the Lakota and the Cheyenne. Indians from all over the United States come here to pray. They tie medicine bundles to the trees as a form of worship. The sign said that we could hike to the top of the butte, but to respect closed areas that we only for the Natives and to not disturb the prayer bundles we came across. I got back in my Chevy and quickly drove to the parking lot adjacent to the trail that went to the top. I grab some water, some pot, a plastic whirligig to give as an offering and headed up the trail. Very soon though, the trail splits, left going up to the top, right going to a number of boulders off to my right. I took the right.
There I found another historic marker that stated that this natural amphitheatre of boulders was known as a place where Native people would come and discussed the events of the day. Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull have all stood here, it said, and spoken to the members of their tribes. I walked up to the most obvious rock that looked like a pulpit. I stood atop it. I looked at the surrounding boulders. I was not much of an emotional guy back then, like I am now, but I was close to tears, on that oratory rock. I can close my eyes even now and see the rough outlines of those rocks and that stone amphitheatre in front of me.
These boulders are smaller than those at Bear Butte, I think to myself, but the feel is similar. I walk up to one and place my hand on its side. I close my eyes. I breathe in. The thought returns again. Something happened here. Maybe not right here but close by. Something important. Maybe as I read more about Cochise, I'll find out. I breathe deep again. I then prepare to take a couple of Brownie shots but it just doesn't feel right. Hard to describe. Just ain't right. I stow my camera and place my hand, one last time, on the nearest rock in the cluster.
I close my eyes.
I breathe in.
I wonder.
[Addendum #1: Through some research, my guess is the above rocks that reminded me of Bear Butte were not the Council Rocks, where peace was negotiated with Cochise. But as luck would have it, I believe the rocks in the distance, in the right portion of the image "Drinking the Same Water, Eat the Same Bread" are the Council Rocks, judging from my reading of my area topographic map. I got lucky. I get lucky a lot.]
Sources: "Cochise, Chiricahua Apache Chief" by Edwin R. Sweeney; "Indeh" by Eve Ball; and "Letters to the Journal of Arizona History" by Robert H. Forbes.
Copyright © 2005, Stu Jenks